This story supplies an excellent argument against the United States signing on to the International Criminal Court:
MADRID, Spain - A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and a Ukrainian cameraman, a court official said Wednesday.
Judge Santiago Pedraz issued the warrant for Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp, all from the U.S. 3rd Infantry, which is based in Fort Stewart, Ga.
Jose Couso, who worked for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad where many journalists were staying to cover the war.
Reuters cameraman Taras Portsyuk, a Ukrainian, also was killed.
Pedraz had sent two requests to the United States — in April 2004 and June 2005 — to have statements taken from the suspects or to obtain permission for a Spanish delegation to quiz them. Both went unanswered.
He said he issued the arrest order because of a lack of judicial cooperation from the United States regarding the case.
According to Colin Powell, a review of the incident found that the use of force was justified -- with U.S. authorities considering the soldiers to have been justified in fearing for their lives.
Of course, if the ICC ever becomes law, any signatory country would seem to have the power to arrest American citizens -- the U.S. Constitution notwithstanding, because treaties are said to become part of U.S. law. But can treaties which are inconsistent with the Constitution amend it? Not according to this site, which also maintains that Congress has the power to override treaties. Eugene Volokh, however, has warned that SIGNING TREATIES MAY ERODE THE BILL OF RIGHTS:
American decisions to sign on to international treaties may erode the protections of the Bill of Rights, for instance the First Amendment. Yes, the Supreme Court has supposedly said otherwise, in Reid v. Covert (1957): "[N]o agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the [federal government] which is free from the restraints of the Constitution" (speaking of the Bill of Rights). But it turns out that this supremacy of the Bill of Rights really isn't that strong: The President and the Senate can, in the long run, "insinuat[e] international law" that would create "a partial displacement of constitutional hegemony" (for instance, with "an international norm against hate speech . . . supply[ing] a basis for prohibiting [hate speech], the First Amendment notwithstanding"). "In the short term," international norms would and should be "relevan[t] . . . in domestic constitutional interpretation." But "In the long run, it may point to the Constitution's more complete subordination."
These quotes are not from some anti-internationalist "The U.N. is coming to take away our liberties" conservatives. They are from a recent article by Prof. Peter Spiro, one of the leading American international law scholars; the article, called Treaties, International Law, and Constitutional Rights, was published in 2003 in the Stanford Law Review, which is generally seen as one of the top 3 legal journals in the country.
That's scary as hell, and another argument against Harriet Miers (who's on record as supporting the ICC).
I'd hate to think that our government would deliberately seek to ratify unconstitutional treaties. I mean, doesn't that violate their oath of office?
(I'm also wondering whether Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp have now effectively lost their ability to travel internationally.)
posted by Eric on 10.19.05 at 12:36 PM
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Let that Spaniards take them extra-judicially. I would think that a US Special Forces strike-group could arrange for their immediate release....no finely-written note of protest drawn up by the stripy-pants set. Members of the US military need to know that they are protected by the US Constitution, and the full faith and lethality of the United States of America.
The US is not Chile.
Ted B. · October 19, 2005 01:33 PM
I'm against the International Criminal Court. It is criminal indeed. Yes, the U.N.O. is coming to take away our liberties.
Back in the 1950s, Senator John Bricker of Ohio proposed an amendment to the Constitution, known as the Bricker Amendment, that would prohibit un-Constitutional treaties and "executive agreements" and explicitly affirm the supremacy of our Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, over all foreign treaties. Conservatives strongly supported this amendment, but the "liberals" and the Eisenhower administration reassured us that we had nothing to worry about, that no treaty violating the Constitution would ever be signed, so we really didn't need such an amendment. Now, it turns out we did need it. We must revive the Bricker Amendment. Save our Constitution from the One Worlders. Save our brave soldiers from the International Kangaroo Court.
A few days ago, I read a novel written in the late 1950s, The John Franklin Letters, about patriots overthrowing a One World tyranny.
Yes, I long ago named a principal character in my story after that Senator, Mr. John Bricker. Born on a farm in the middle of Ohio, in his youth he was a Christian (post-millennialist) socialist. He fought the Nazis at Normandy. After seeing Dachau, his world-view underwent a profound change. He became a pre-millennialialist fundamental Protestant and a rock-ribbed Constitutionalist Republican and capitalist. He is also a Freemason, like George Washington. His favorite holiday is the Fourth of July. He started a chain of hardware stores, then retired, leaving the chain to his sons, and started a radio call-in show where he expounded his views and argued with opponents, notably Abe Levenstein, a socialist who is now an anarcho-syndicalist and the nation's star football player. Mr. Bricker's study of the Bible finally led him to become an Orthodox Jew. He is currently trying to get his fellow Republicans to get the Constitution Conservation Amendment ratified.
He is a father and grandfather. His wife Rosemary was a prostitute when she married him. She lives in the kitchen, the dining room, and the bedroom. She loves to cook, loves to have lots of guests over for dinner, and loves to worship her man's manhood. Her favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. She loves men's men. She does not understand Lesbians. She stopped being Orthodox and became a Reform Jewess when her husband's rabbi would not let her perform weddings for men's men at the Episcopal church or at Rev. Victor's Mission of the Son of Man. She does not believe women should vote, and has only voted herself once in her life, for her husband when he ran for the Senate. (He wss defeated by a young "spendthrift" who was later in turn defeated by Pat McGonegal.)
John and Rosemary Bricker have four children: John William, Bob, Anne, and Mary. John William and Mary are Orthodox Jews like their father. Bob is a member of the Church of the Subgenius and is also a Reform Jew like his mother. Anne has a wife, Barbara, and is a Tribadentine Catholic.
Mr. Bricker is highly respected, including by his opponents, for his rock-ribbed integrity, honesty, and justice. He is the Grand Patiarch, the Grand Old Man on the Mountain.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Let that Spaniards take them extra-judicially. I would think that a US Special Forces strike-group could arrange for their immediate release....no finely-written note of protest drawn up by the stripy-pants set. Members of the US military need to know that they are protected by the US Constitution, and the full faith and lethality of the United States of America.
The US is not Chile.